AAPL.O

John Willoughby – June 21, 2016 06:23AMReplyQuoteCyberdyne Systems Customer Support

I think that he is also making a point with respect to Apple's refusal to contribute anything to the Republican convention due to Trump's views. He's saying, #NotAllRepublicans. Apple is rejecting Trump, not the GOP as a whole.

Apple contributes to everyone. Well, until Trump. It's a way of ensuring that both sides are happy with them. FB has no scruples, they contribute to Trump too.

As for driverless cars, yes that is a HUGE change in our future. As for Apple, I listened to the Elon Musk re/code interview. He said that Apple was a much bigger threat than Google as far as the cars go. He didn't say why. Then I got it…

It's the battery stupid.

On the other hand, Elon thinks that Apple is behind on AI, and I think it was he (or maybe someone else) who said that was in part because of their privacy concerns.

The comment on AI sounds along the lines of what Siracusa has been saying about Siri v. Hey Google; one part (he says) is that real neural netting works better w/ server-side, but Apple sees that as a privacy compromise. Or something like that.

John Willoughby – June 21, 2016 10:19AMReplyQuoteCyberdyne Systems Customer Support

That's why Apple's betting heavily on the (relatively) new field of differential privacy, allowing them to mine data for their users as a whole, but not for any individual user. They're betting that they can get what they need to make their products as smart as Google's, without stripping away their users' privacy to do it.

Quote“Poor Tim. What a nice guy he is, but somebody gave him bad advice,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said at the end of an animated 15-minute phone interview Monday evening. “He probably doesn’t think that much about politics.”

I think you have to look at the context and the lens she's developed -- certainly the other cases (I mean, Google _is_ being put under observation of anti-competitive behavior) and past history of Microsoft going to Federal court for monopolistic practices -- and her concerns make sense. They may not really apply now in the cae of Apple Music, but she's concerned w/ large companies moving towards monopoly. And Apple could have leveraged their market share and network effects. But that would have required a) blocking other services (the way MS tried to) and 2) a, uh, good or highly adopted product.

Like a lot of things, Apple might best be served by/in another place. (Country, state, etc)

John Willoughby – June 30, 2016 05:52AMReplyQuoteCyberdyne Systems Customer Support

Even if they were based in Antarctica, US politicians would still fight for access to customers' data, to regulate terms of service and sales policies, and every aspect of Apple's business in the US. Sales to penguins would be way up, though, and we'd probably see a two-tone black and white iPhone.

John Willoughby – June 30, 2016 06:00AMReplyQuoteCyberdyne Systems Customer Support

Apple built a walled garden. Customers are admitted to the walled garden. So many customers are in the garden that it has become a prime site for lunch vendors. Customers are welcome to buy lunch outside the garden, and Apple makes none of that money. Vendors who want to line up on the midway inside the garden and sell lunch to the throngs of customers there, must pay Apple 30% of the money that they make inside the garden.

I think that if Spotify wants to sell subscriptions without surcharge in Apple Store apps, they should be forced to bundle Apple Music and iTunes with their app. They shouldn't be able to block Apple's access to their customers, after all...